Leisure time during lockdown not that hard to find

It occurred to me recently that several school summer holidays I spent during the ’70s were in fact ideal preparation for filling unexpected leisure hours during lockdown. Far from feeling the need to take up creative challenges and hobbies while spending more time at home, I’ve found myself falling back on those far-off days of idleness for inspiration.

It helped back then that we didn’t have the option of being distracted by technology of course. Nowadays, apart from the odd Zoom quiz with family, that remains pretty much the case for me, so no screen time getting in the way of staring into space.

In the ’70s, my parents approached television with some suspicion, so we didn’t have a telly until ages after everyone else and even then, our screen time was carefully monitored.

Which meant there were weeks spent avoiding a) my three younger siblings and b) homework and exam revision, with no outside entertainment to rely on.

In those days, children were encouraged to go feral during school holidays, preferably staying away from the house until teatime.

I would buck the trend, staying indoors if possible as the others were all outside.

This meant days of listening to records, rearranging my record collection, rearranging the posters of pop stars on the bedroom wall and reading books I’d already read several times.

Some days I might do make-up research, which involved flicking through old Jackie magazines for inspiration then doing some experiments with eyeshadows in “new, bold, bright” colours and very sticky lipgloss tasting of various “exotic fruits”.

Although there were no mobiles then, there was the big cream telephone on the hall table and if I timed it so no parent could hear me talking on it (which would necessitate them pointing to their watches saying “We’re not made of money you know”) I could phone a friend to moan about the lack of anything to do.

Tea and half an hour of family telly, some more boredom, then bed. And that was it really. For weeks. And no Netflix. Happy days.

Tea and half an hour of family telly, some more boredom, then bed